But therein lies the problem – women have come to EXPECT ourselves to do all or most, while not EXPECTING the same of our partners. And if we continue like this, we are modeling it for our children to keep up the same EXPECTING, which is not serving any of us well.

COVID-19 has changed everything. We can’t fix this. We can’t stop our children’s worlds from being flipped upside down. We have to just sit next to them while they cry and rage, without a way to make it better. This may be the best thing to happen to parenting in a long time. We are being forced into a situation to host our children through the process of building resilience.

Now is the perfect time for kids to be bored, and for them to bother us that they’re bored. There are great reasons for us to encourage and celebrate this boredom so we no longer have to carry that burden of figuring out “what to do.”

A global pandemic strikes at the heart of the anxiety beast: the world is not safe. We are literally not able to leave the house because it might harm us or we might harm someone. So, especially for parents and children who are already prone to anxiety, how do we keep it from becoming completely consuming?

How do we work remotely while our children are e-learning, which will no means be without some adult supervision? How do we make decisions about how to balance social distancing with staying socially connected? How do we get through a pandemic while parenting?

I see shadows of these same middle-schoolers and high-schoolers completely burned out by the time they get to college. It’s so clear from the vantage point of psychologist, that it keeps my high-achieving Mom impulses in check.

I approach most parenting topics with curiosity and openness to understand different perspectives and decisions. This is not true for pre-teens using social media. My strong and unwavering opinion is that these social media platforms, in their true forms, are developmentally unfit. At the very least, our pre-teens should not be using them at the same access level of adults and teens; ideally, they should not use them at all.

I had sort of heard that puberty starts earlier these days, but I realized I did not have a full grasp of what that meant. Earlier than when -- when I was a kid? How early is normal? When do we know It has started (i.e. – sudden emotional outbursts)?

We likely attach more meaning and purpose to our identities as wife and mother, especially when we are surrounded by the message that “good” mothers and wives know all and do all for our families.   

Although the science is clear, and school models have followed the science, real-life can leave more questions than answers: what counts as “bullying,” how do we know when it’s happening and what to do we do as parents if our child is being bullied — OR if our child IS the bully?

Sleep is everything . . . If moms on the brink of a mental health precipice get the message that they have to spend hours not sleeping so they don’t forever harm their children, this is downright dangerous.

Taking a step back, our children’s growth and learning should encompass a whole lot more than reading comprehension and math computation. Maybe we should ask ourselves what other types of learning get to happen BECAUSE of summer break.

Feeding our children sounds as basic and instinctual to parenting as loving them. But from the often surprising struggles with breastfeeding, to the mixed messages around how to be “healthy,” feeding our children has become another land mine of parenting anxiety. Balancing experts and science with reality, I offer ways we can all nurture our children’s bodies without losing our minds.

I also seize opportunities to talk about how everyone is born with a different body shape and it’s cool that we all look unique. I have even tried my best to shield my girls from watching adored female celebrities in their skimpy outfits, flaunting and glamorizing body shapes unattainable by most. Yet, my 6-year-old said she didn’t want to be fat and my 9-year-old is dissatisfied with being “skinny.” UGH.

By building up and uniting mothers, are we perpetuating the very complaint that fathers don’t do their part? Are we leaving out fathers and then wishing they would do more?

So when we can work with our kids to face and do what makes them nervous, we deprive anxiety of oxygen, and build their confidence in themselves.

So what does it take as parents to raise our children to not only authentically care about the world outside of themselves, but also feel empowered to act on it? I share what scientists know about empathy, and common-sense ways we can nurture our children to translate that empathy into action.

The constant stream of headlines about the dangers of social media adds stress to our baseline anxiety about parenting adolescents. No matter the generation, era, or state of technology, adolescence is a phase of huge growth and change that can be emotionally tumultuous for kids and parents alike. It also happens to be a risky time for mental health problems to show up, because of the stress of this time of life, genetic predispositions kicking in, or the combination.

Data suggests we have gone backwards as parents, and are fostering financial independence less than we used to. So what do we actually DO? It’s simple: Make our kids earn money, and give away money.

Between my personal record of failed New Year’s resolutions and years of a day job in behavior change, I no longer believe in New Year’s resolutions and I don’t believe in them for anyone else.